And The Tears I Shed Are Not For Me
by wittylibrarian
Summary: Neville visits his parents at St. Mungos, after events in 'Harry Potter and the Awkward Date', to discuss what he remembers...about everything...Please R&R!


COPYRIGHT DISCLAIMER: This fan fiction is based on characters and events created by author J.K. Rowling in her Harry Potter series of novels. All rights and ownership belong to Rowling and her publishers. The writer of this fanfic is not be paid or compensated in any way in the telling of this story. Also, as the writer is poor, please do not sue me (with emphasis on 'please' and truckloads of emphasis on 'do not sue.') Danke.  
  
AUTHOR'S NOTES: this is a side-story to the first major Harry Potter fanfic I've written titled 'Harry Potter and the Awkward Date'. Some incidents described here had occurred in that story.  
  
And the Tears I Shed Are Not For Me  
  
The boy approached the forsaken storefront of Purge and Dowse. He hoped no one noticed him, that he was there by himself. He stood, his face close to the glass, staring at a disheveled mannequin as he whispered, "I'm Neville Longbottom, I'm here to see my parents."  
  
The mannequin took a long time to respond, tilting its head at Neville with a questioning air. "Don't give me that," Neville hissed, shaking nervously. "They're my parents, I have every right to see them, and visiting hours are still open."  
  
The mannequin's head turned toward its right along the row of dummies standing guard at the entranceway of St. Mungo's. Its lifeless companion was slowly shaking its head back and forth, and the entire row turned to stare back at the young wizard.  
  
"No, of course my Gran doesn't know I'm here! That's the point! I'd like to see my mother and father on my own for once!"  
  
The mannequin lowered its head in thought.  
  
"Please!" Neville mumbled. "Please... Please let me see them..."  
  
The mannequin raised its head, then nodded slowly, as though regretting the decision.  
  
Neville stepped forward into the glass, which warped and folded over him as though he was diving into a waterfall. No one on the street noticed.  
  
The fourth floor long-term resident ward wasn't as quiet as Neville had hoped. Agnes the Dog Woman still hadn't been cured of her canine habits and was at the moment of his arrival hopping upon various beds barking loudly at nothing in particular. His former DADA teacher Gilderoy Lockhart had improved his memory to where he knew how to conduct flattering personal interviews, and was practicing speaking into a handy flower vase as though it were a microphone.  
  
No one, thankfully, was giving him much notice as he walked down the aisle of beds towards the corner where his parents were kept.  
  
Neville first approached the bed that had LONGBOTTOM, FRANK on the medical clipboard dangling from it, but wasn't surprised to see his father staring wide-eyed toward the ceiling. Neville had never seen his father close his eyes, however; even his grandmother's assertions that the Healers are able to close his father's eyes to sleep at night could not rid Neville of the nightmares he suffered from time to time of that unceasing stare.  
  
"Dad," he whispered, trying again as he did on every visit, slipping in a hand to grasp his father's, just hoping that perhaps this time his father could feel his presence, "it's me. It's your son. I'm a little grown up now, but it's me. Can you notice?"  
  
Frank Longbottom's eyes flickered just slightly, but did not blink nor look away from the distant dark ceiling. He wouldn't always stay like this, which was the only good thing about his father's condition, if you could even say that. He would get up at times from the bed, stumbling blind and deaf, crawling on the floor. He would know to eat when the time came, he would know to bathe when the time came, but he could not taste, he could not feel the water. That much the Healers knew. All that pain of days being under the Cruciatus Curse had cut him entirely off from feeling the world around him.  
  
Neville slowly pulled his hand away. Dejected, he turned to the other bed, to the other patient left in this corner of the ward. She was sitting up, having enjoyed her breakfast by the look of things, with a lopsided, twitching smile on her face. She had pulled out a set of Droobles Blowing gum bits from the bag her relatives leave her on their weekly visits, the candy she loved as a child. She unwrapped the fifth one in front of her, four unchewed pieces sitting to one side with four neatly flattened wrappers on the other.  
  
"Mum?" Neville whispered to his mother. "It's me. I...I came to say...hello."  
  
Alice Longbottom did not turn to see her son. She succeeded in unwrapping the fifth gumball, placing it orderly with the other pieces, and worked on flattening out the wrapper as neat as could be.  
  
"Mum?" Neville moved the chair placed next to her bed as close as he could. "I wanted to tell you...I wanted to talk to someone...because...Mum," he whispered, "I wish you wouldn't be like this."  
  
He placed his hand on the bed table, trying to reach within her line of sight without disturbing her effort to smooth out the wrinkles of the wrapping paper. She finally noticed, pausing for a second, then slowly reaching out a hand to touch his. Her hand quivered, shook, the tattered nerves unsettled even all these years afterward. Neville looked up to her face but she was staring downward still at the wrapper.  
  
"Mum," Neville whispered. "I saw her again."  
  
Alice pulled her hand back, and continued pressing down the wrapper.  
  
"The woman that tortured us. Bellatrix Lestrange. I saw her. She..." Neville paused. He worried mentioning the name of that woman would force a reaction out of his mother, that she would stop her work, finally stop it after all these years, all these visits. He wanted her to stop, he worried it would hurt her.  
  
She stopped. The wrapper still had its crinkles and ripples, and a slight tear on one side, but she stopped. Neville watched her hand leave the table to reach over to him, to his hair where she gave a quick tussle, an act his mother hadn't done since his Christmas visit that year they finally got the invitation to Hogwarts.  
  
Neville looked to her face, to her expression, wondering if... No. Her eyes were blank, dull. Her smile was slight and hard to see. Then she turned away, glancing back down at the wrappers. With both hands she flipped through them, from the top to the next then to the next, where she reached in and gently slid it out. Her smiled widened as she handed it to Neville, the wrapper saved especially for him.  
  
He looked down at his feet as he took. "Thanks, mum," he muttered, folding it in two and sliding it into his pocket.  
  
Alice smiled and went back to flattening out the fifth wrapper. Satisfied, she placed it on her pile and then began unwrapping the sixth Droobles gum piece.  
  
"Mum," Neville whispered. "I saw her, the woman that tortured you, and dad, and... Mum, I had done something brave, but sorta stupid, I had gone to help my friends, and, I suppose I hadn't told you about them but you saw them year, this last Christmas, remember they were getting autographs from Gilderoy?"  
  
Alice had unwrapped the gum and began flattening out the sixth wrapper.  
  
"Well, yeah, but, yeah they're my friends, although we don't hang out...that much, but they're busy and all. And that one girl, Hermione, you saw her that day too, she was the one I told you that I...liked a lot and...well, she doesn't like me too much, you can kinda tell she's been hoping for...but I don't hate him, we're still friends and all, well anyway, we went to try and save someone, but it was a trap."  
  
The wrapper tore in two. Neville paused, watching his mother crumple the damaged pieces and toss them over the side of her bed. She grabbed another gumball and unwrapped that.  
  
"They were waiting for us, waiting for Harry Potter. That's because Harry, well, you knew how he'd defeated You-Know-Who, because I remembered. I can remember now that was what they were asking you between...I can remember it now, Mum."  
  
Neville shuddered. "I tried to forget. I tried. But I think I forgot too much. Why I kept forgetting things, even why I kept forgetting those Remembralls. But seeing her...seeing Bellatrix...and then when..."  
  
Neville's mom finished flattening out the wrapper and handed it to him. Dutifully, he folded it and placed it in his pocket.  
  
"Well, Mum. To get Harry to hand over a prophecy that had his name on it, she was going to torture Ginny, I told you about her too, she was nice enough to go to that Yule Ball so long ago with me, but we fought, and...well, there was six of us and twelve of them, and it came down to Harry and me to stop them. And...she did that spell. The Cruciatus spell on me. And...I felt it."  
  
Neville shuddered again. "I knew then, all the pain you and dad went through, all the burning and...and it made me realize what you went through. It made me remember too, why you went through it. Because...because..."  
  
His voice dropped so low it couldn't count as a whisper. "Because it was my fault. Mum, I'm sorry."  
  
He wiped a tear from his eyes, hoping no one was seeing him like this. "I remembered Dad doing what he could to hide us, but I didn't...I ran out of the hiding place, and they, one of the men there grabbed me and...they...I remember Dad yelling at them not to do something, I think I know what it was now, because you came out of hiding too to stop them. And..."  
  
He wiped another tear. "I know why I tried to forget. They made me watch."  
  
He stopped. On the bedside dresser he spotted a glass of water, and he took a long sip from it. As he placed it back on the dresser it refilled itself, waiting for the next drink.  
  
"I didn't like what they were doing, I didn't like her laughing. I didn't...want to be like them, or...I didn't want that life when I got older, understanding magic like that, I didn't want, didn't want to be like that ever...but still...I remember that now."  
  
Alice finished flattening the wrapper, and this time kept it on her pile. She pulled a gumball from the bag and continued her favorite project.  
  
"So I saw her. Bellatrix. She had gotten out of prison, because her boss...because Voldemort's back," Neville whispered that name. "They've started again. That war of theirs. They've started...killing people. They've done some other things. Like last week."  
  
Neville sighed. "They sent Dementors about. They were attacking people, wizards and Muggles both, and it was pretty scary there, Mum. But, I guess you could be proud of me, I guess. I've done a Patronus."  
  
Alice showed no sign of noticing, focusing her efforts on flattening out her wrapper.  
  
"I told you about my friends, well, we've started doing our own battle training, against the Dark Arts. We had a...well, the Dark Arts teacher we had was a real...well, rhymes with 'witch' and all. She wasn't teaching us, she was scared to teach us. So we learned on our own. And Harry taught us how to make Patronuses to scare off Dementors."  
  
This wrapper was finished, and this was handed to Neville for safe-keeping. His mother started unwrapping another gumball.  
  
"Hermione was good at it, she has to be, as smart as she is. Her Patronus was an otter. Don't know why, though. Otters must be the anima protector for smart, skeptical girls or something. Harry's was a stag, he said something about it being his father's, I think his dad's friend Remus Lupin taught him that, which is good, Lupin was a great teacher for me too and all. That was why Harry was so good teaching us."  
  
Neville smiled a bit, but that smile faded as he remembered his Patronus. "Well, I wasn't too good at getting a Patronus going in our classes, though. We were interrupted too, so I didn't have a chance to get one going. Until that day the Dementor showed up in the neighborhood. Last week."  
  
Neville glanced about, still worried if someone was watching, or noticing he was there. "None of the people there were good at making Patronuses, I guess they fell out of habit or forgot how. I remembered what Harry told us, that we needed happy thoughts, that we...we had to think of something...I needed to find a happy thought. So I thought. And...at first I couldn't...and..."  
  
Neville reached for the glass of water and this time finished it down to the last drop. When he placed it back on the dresser it took a full two minutes to refill itself. "I got angry. I got angry that the bad guys were hurting people again, that Bellatrix was out and plotting stuff like this, that she was...she was probably watching this somewhere and laughing the way she did, the way she still does. I heard her laughing during that fight at the Ministry and...oh, she laughed when she hurt us and the way she laughed when she killed...but I..."  
  
Alice kept this finished wrapper and started again on the next one.  
  
"Mum. When I got angry, I really got angry thinking about Bellatrix and...and I began thinking...I thought what it would be like if...when...I imagined what it would be like to see her dead."  
  
Neville took a deep breath. "I imagined her dead, bloodied, writhing in pain as she went, I imagined just how painful I could make it for her, for all she'd done to everybody, and..."  
  
"And I didn't even say the spell, it just happened as I thought it. My Patronus showed up. A nice big lion showed up, and...it hurt that Dementor. I'd only heard such shrieking before, and I knew how...painful it was. That lion Patronus just...attacked it...kept attacking it, when the Aurors showed up they killed the Dementor out of mercy more than any other reason, Mum."  
  
Neville leaned his head onto the bed, resting it on the bedsheets, close to her leg, reaching across the bed's width with one arm, turning his head away from her, facing his ruined father. "Oh God, Mom. My Patronus. My happy thought is wanting somebody dead. Even if it was her, that monster Bellatrix. That's my happy thought. What the Hell does that make me, Mum?"  
  
He couldn't cry. He watched his father Frank just lie there on the other side of the ward, broken, vacant, and he knew Bellatrix deserved it, deserves whatever punishment was coming to her, and there was a part of him, not dark or foreboding but burning brightly like the sun, that wanted to be the one to do it.  
  
And he knew, somehow through all that burning rage, he knew that rage would make him just like Bellatrix. And he remembered now, this past year, like waking from a dream, that he didn't want to be like that, ever. And it scared him.  
  
"What should I do, Mum? Please, can you? Can you hear me for once? I want to know what to do."  
  
Neville sat up, glancing to his mother. Alice had finished unwrapping her gum, and for now had stopped pressing down on the wrapper. Almost thoughtlessly, she picked up the gumball and placed it in her mouth. She chewed, about twelve times, then blew out with a weak breath, letting the gum bubble out, a small lumpish shape that popped against the bottom of her nose. Smiling girlishly, she grabbed the used gum and rolled it in her hand, crushing it flat against the table with a loud 'Ka-Splat!'  
  
Footsteps quickly followed the splatting noise, and the duty nurse hurried over. A thin, young woman with cropped blonde hair spotted Neville with his mother. "Oh, hello there, I hadn't seen you come in! You must be the Longbottom's boy, aren't you? Neddy, right?"  
  
He nodded quietly, not correcting her. He was used to being, well, misidentified. Not like anyone was going to confuse him with Harry Potter or anything. He noticed her nametag read 'Susan,' like as though anyone could get that name mixed up somehow...  
  
"No, wait! I'm sorry! Neville is your name. Of course! You were in the papers!"  
  
He frowned. He had been getting too much of this, actually. And he hated it, because everyone was acting like it was a good thing when it wasn't at all.  
  
Susan the nurse stepped close to Neville's mother. "You've got a very clever wizard there for a son, Mrs. Longbottom! He made a Patronus, and at his age too that's right powerful magic. I hope he's been telling you about it..."  
  
"Yeah, I had," Neville whispered. "If it's all right, I hope I'm not bothering anyone..."  
  
"Of course not, not at all! It's just so fabulous that you're here to be with your parents and all..."  
  
"Actually, I should get going," Neville interrupted. He was worried he was getting too much attention right now and didn't want to cope with it. He stood from his chair and leaned in to kiss his mother on the cheek. "I've got to get going, Mum. I think Gran's about worried by now where I've gotten to..."  
  
He waited for Susan to turn away before he started back down the long hallway. He got about as far as Gilderoy's bed when the day nurse gasped, "Mrs. Longbottom! Neville, your mother!"  
  
Neville turned to see his mother following him, walking rather assuredly rather than the ungainly wobble she'd had over the years. He assumed she had one more wrapper for him, so he stood there, one hand ready to lift up to take the small piece of paper.  
  
Instead, Alice Longbottom came up close to her son, and wrapped one arm around him, and leaning over slightly she placed a kiss on his forehead. She planted it, warmly, just off-center to the right, a mother's kiss. When she finished she wrapped the other arm around her son and gave him a short, powerful hug.  
  
"Mum?" Neville whispered, looking up at her the whole time, watching her eyes, looking for a glimpse of something, anything. The smile his mother had was the warmest he'd seen in years, maybe ever, and her eyes...  
  
...remained blank, distant, and the smile faded as she ended the hug. Wordlessly, she turned, walking back down the row of beds back to her own, where her gumballs were waiting to be unwrapped.  
  
The day nurse Susan looked ready to applaud. Gilderoy stopped practicing on his interview techniques and for once sat utterly silent.  
  
Neville didn't say anything, and didn't wait to have anyone else ask him. He hurried back to the elevators, back to the main floor and to the exit, and rushed back out onto the normal busy street.  
  
He cried the entire way on the Underground back to where his Gran was, and didn't care if anyone saw him do it.  
  
End of Story 


End file.
